Open source software and development can push governments of developing nations ahead in the world, but only if they participate as producers of the technology themselves, United Nations University (UNU) researchers say. While they say developing regions such as China, East Asia, India, and South America are among the biggest markets for open source software, UNU officials worry that there may be too few open source developers in those regions.(Reade more on business.newsforge.com).

The UNU IIST is looking at the same issues of technical sustainability that we addressed in the WSIS CS declarations and which I discussed at the recent CRACIN workshop. In particular, IIST recognizes that open source alone is not sufficient, but that training for developers in these countries is key. Their take on this is to build corporate partnerships, says Bill McIver.